During the trial of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot there were voices of concern that the three young ladies would not really care for their political message, but would rather be looking for cheap popularity, which they eventually could transform into cash.

The information I recently came across (here in English as well as here, here and here in Russian) show that there have indeed been

aspirations to exploit the current media hype

although the latter should not be attributed to the meanwhile jailed musicians, but to a company related to their lawyer Mark Feygin.

According to the quoted sources, the OOO Kinokompania WEB-BIO has applied for the registration of the trade mark “Pussy Riot” not only with the Russian Patent Office Rospatent, but also with Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM), which administers the so called Community Trade Marks.

Unfortunately, one could not reasonably accuse Rospatent of being particularly transparent, so the only trade mark application accessible online is the one with OHIM (filed under number 011 182 367).

the large number of classes applied for

Weird trade mark applications and registrations are not unusual, when it comes to Russia.

During the last couple of years market participants managed to successfully register brands such as “Christmas” and “New Year” for banking services (read more here and here) as well as “Anna Chapman” for clothing and beverages (read more here).

As I am particularly interested in Russian trade marks, I will follow also the story of the Pussy Riot brand, thus – stay tuned.